


Multiverse (A Viktuuri AU WIP)

by eyrist



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aye it's an AU, I Don't Even Know, Idk help do you think it's a good idea or, M/M, Multiverse Theory, This is just an experiment okay I just wrote without a specific plot in mind tbh, Viktor with a k fite me, With probably multiple pov's, a YOI au, also it's set in third person, viktuuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9591560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyrist/pseuds/eyrist
Summary: One year.In a span of one year, a lot of things could happen-- say, getting the most decorated athlete in figure skating history as your coach, qualifying for the Grand Prix Final again, getting engaged to the most beautiful man in the world, and winning silver.What if I told you none of that happened?What if I told to you the story of what could've happened had Yuuri Katsuki went through with his plans of retirement?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Yo so like I don't even know where I was going with this but here I am, with a prologue-ish kinda thing. 
> 
> I don't even know if I'm going to make this a one-shot or a longer thing, but we'll see how it turns out in the end. Thanks for the consideration on reading this though !

Multiverse.

Have you ever heard the word? If not, then let me fill you in a little bit.

 

          The Multiverse Theory is a speculation that basically says that for every time you take one action over the other(s), a new, separate universe is created, in which the choices you didn't make, you did in that world. Multiple Universes. Think of it as like a tree, with branches that extend into tinier and tinier little twigs, or like a path you take, where the forks could lead to entirely different places.

          Sometimes, I wonder what would've happened if I didn't decide to end my career on figure skating, what the me in that other universe would've done, or how he feels right at this moment, or if he even stayed in Detroit to train with Coach Celestino and all his other rinkmates. Maybe the me in that other universe got a new coach, someone Celestino recommended for him, or someone entirely unexpected. Did the me in that other universe somehow, with the help of all the blessings he could gather, qualify for the next Grand Prix Final? Was it possible that that me won?

          My name is Yuuri Katsuki. I'm 24 years old and I'm currently back in Japan, working again in the family hot springs, but with a side hobby of researching and formulating ideas, theories, for science. I'd stopped skating for more than a year now, and with a degree I got around the same time, I'm not really sure where to go from here, so I ended up only returning home. Yes, I could apply for an actual, stable job that could last me my whole lifetime if I did well, but I don't think that's the right course of action for me to take right now. A year isn't enough time to think.

          I sigh, the pen in my right hand dropping to the desk below. I leaned forward, eyes closing as I rub them, trying to pry the tempting sleep away. If I didn't finish writing this down now, there's no way I'll be able to remember it all again when I wake up. 

Wait, what time was it even anyway? 

My phone reads '02:51'.. Oh. 

 

_Five minutes._

          I pick up the pen again, and though my hand was calloused enough, wrist aching and begging for sweet rest once more, I continue to jot down from where I'd left only a few seconds prior. I was nearing the end of my entry. 

 

_Five minutes, and I'll be finished._

 

_December 29, 2016 - 01:39_

 

_I had another dream again, like the ones I always write about?_

_The ones with Viktor Nikiforov.. It's weird._

 

_I'm always dreaming about him, more frequently than I used to, and the scenarios are more realistic to just be a mere figment of my subconscious._

 

_He's always smiling at me (or the person whose eyes I'm seeing through), holding 'me', staying close to 'me', waking up next to 'me' in the morning when his hair would be a mess, his eyes tired while fighting to pull himself from the depths of slumber, but so full of **warmth** at the same time. His is voice raspy, yet he still calls out to greet 'me' a good morning, hand running through 'my' hair and leaning in to kiss 'my' forehead. He always calls 'me' "Love".  _

 

_Love._

 

_Am I comfort-dreaming myself? I thought we'd been over this, Yuuri. You were lucky to even get to skate on the same ice as **the** Viktor Nikiforov, even if you did fall on last place. You should be satisfied with just that, and your skating career is over.  It's been more than a year, Yuuri._

 

I sigh as I re-read the first few paragrahps I'd made earlier, then continue, 

 

_But let's talk about tonight's dream. This one was a bit more.. interesting, to say the least._

_I could only see bits and pieces, like a jumbled-up flashback was being played before my eyes, like an amnesiac trying to recall his memories-- not how most of these vivid dreams go._

 

_I remember walking around an unfamiliar place, taking in the beauty of the sights, looking around a market lit with cheerful Christmas decorations, then peering through a glass case, then a hand in mine, a golden ring held by the other.._

_An engagement? With whom? It just cuts in that moment._

 

_There's more after that, though.  I saw a similar gold ring on 'my' finger, looking down at it after 'my' lips parted from the band, then the ice came to focus. The beautiful, cold ice beneath 'my' skates, 'I' was going to skate. And not just skate, but in a rink with pink bleachers all around. The Grand Prix Final? In Barcelona?_

_No, no, it couldn't be. It could just be any old rink with pink bleachers. Yuuri, stop it._

 

It _was_ just a dream, though. 

 

_But the next, final scene makes me think otherwise.  I was standing on a podium, a silver medal in my hand. Then everything cut to black._

_It's a bit funny how much that dream played out like a movie, with the dramatic ending and everything._

 

_Because before I woke up, I could swear I heard faint music, and skates sliding across the ice-- two pairs of skates, if I remember right._

 

I glanced at my phone again. 

 

'02:56' 

 

~ 

 

It was _him_ again.

 

          Every night, though restless as he was, the images and scenarios of _that man_ play on a loop in his mind's eye, and he was beginning to think there was no way of erasing _him_ from it ever again.

          These dreams started about maybe a year ago-- Lucid episodes of random, but sweet, moments that would usually leave him opening his eyes at three in the morning, brows knitted together in confusion as he attempted to decipher the meanings behind watching the rest of his life play out, but with the addition of a dark-haired, bespectacled man always close to him. 

 

Viktor's chest started to hurt, and the worst part about it was that he could never know why. 


	2. Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So who thought I would totally abandon this ? :D I definitely did. 
> 
> Also I switched to 3rd POV iM SORRY BUT THIS IS THE WAY I'M COMFORTABLE WRITING
> 
> but no worries I'll be adding 1st POV chapters every once in a while too ! 
> 
> thank you for your consideration !! 
> 
> And thanks for the kudos !

        The following day, Yuuri did nothing else save for his usual routine-- waking up early (after a nap post-entry), helping with morning prep, then riding out the day running around, delivering towels and sweet, sweet katsudon to customers and bathers and just general inn occupants. Suffice to say, it wasn't a day any darker than the shade of grey his life faded  into.

 

         That is, until the sun began its descent towards the horizon, orange meeting with blue meeting with reds and purples. It was a mix you'd see on an artist's palette, a swirl of fleeting colours and hues that would only last for a few minutes.

  It was at this time that a certain family of five visited Yu-topia Akatsuki, and before Yuuri could even register the events that unfolded before him, he was feeling the wind against his face, the hum and mechanical noises from passing cars reaching his ears and a large pair of hands shoving him forward as his feet took quick, reluctant steps through the snow that brought him closer and closer on the path to one of his favourite places in the region. Realisation that Axel, Lutz, and Loop were tugging forward at his hands met him, too, all whilst their mother jogged a bit ahead of them, only peering over her shoulder with a smile lighting up her features. 

 

"Yuuri-kun! You forgot! You promised to watch the Grand Prix with us again this year!"

 

          It was Yuuko's voice that reached him first, out of the laughter and giggling the girls made.

The Grand Prix Final? That was tonight?

  He was beginning to feel a knot tying itself in his stomach, a growing sombre feeling in his chest as memories of that year flashed before his eyes, as well as the visions he'd recorded the night- er, early hours of that night- before. 

 

"Why do we have to watch it at the rink, though?" 

 

They were all nearing Hasetsu Ice Castle, and Yuuri was able to see the large building from the short distance they had yet to traverse.

 

         It didn't make much sense -watching the GPF at the rink, instead of in his home-, but it wasn't very hard to figure out why they'd dragged him out in the first place, either.

 

          Yuuri'd thought he'd made it _very_ clear already that he wasn't going to step onto the ice again, the ice that gave him so many opportunities, feel so many things and experience so much. On the ice, he felt sadness, joy, confidence, fear and a whole _spectrum_ of emotions. He'd fallen in love with skating, with the feeling of gliding through something he'd grown with, with the sound of his blades scraping against the cold surface, with the chilly air that managed to calm him /every single damn time/, without fail.  In hindsight, it was hard to believe he stopped, that he managed to keep going without the ice as his support and the music he'd so willingly drowned himself in.

 

          It was hard to believe that nearly sixteen years of passion that burned as bright as the sunset came to a close and the darkness took over for a year, but there he was once more, standing in the lobby as the Nishigori family urged him to sit on a bench and accept the skates in the triplets' hands-- his skates, he immediately recognised.  He'd given those away to them, but there they were, polished, shining, almost like he'd handed them over just yesterday with the blades sharpened and the pair of boots in near-perfect condition.

 

         A wave of nostalgia washed over him as the leather touched his fingertips and the group stalked away to leave him be by himself, to make the choice of either leaving, or skating once more.

  His heart was heavy, and the silence was deafening. Amongst the hum that reverberated from the beautifully-cold room beyond the doors to his left, and his own heartbeats in his ears, Yuuri could hear virtually nothing. His brain was focused on only the pair of shoes he hunched over, and eventually he squeezed his eyes shut, instead focusing on his thoughts-- his thoughts that would contradict themselves and make him even more confused.

 

_I'm so close to the ice._

 

_If I take a few steps, I'll be able to see it again. I can skate again._

 

 _But this is such a stupid idea._ _This is so dumb._

 

_I want to skate again._

_But the disappointment.._

 

**_"Yuuri!"_ **

 

          Yuuri's vision returned, his gaze looked calm and his brows were relaxed. The depression would come again so _easily_ , so _quickly_ , and it was just **so scary** , trying to reignite that lost flame, taking the leap of faith and build trust in himself and in his skating again. It could all be shattered with a single touch and the thought of spending months of trying to recuperate once more if he messed up was too daunting-- but still, he found himself setting the skates down, bending forward to tug loose at the laces of his own shoes and remove them.  It took no more than two minutes to pull the boots on, his feet feeling snug inside as he began lacing them on, and he'd risen from his seat.

 

          His eyes looked towards the entrance to the rink with so much _hesitation_ , and so much _fear_ , so much **anxiety** that would usually send him cowering away, but he was going to do this. For.. For _someone_ out there, whose voice that called out to him, bright, cheerful, passing by like a wind that whispered to him for a mere split second, quick enough to only be mistaken for a stupid hallucination. But whomever that person was, it was still going to be for the him who pushed Yuuri to take slow steps towards his wish-- a wish he'd hidden tucked away so deep inside him for so long, and denied too many times over. 

 

        The man was determined as he padded towards the double doors and walked through the entrance, a rush of cold air meeting him as his skin raised goosebumps-- and Yuuri loved the feeling growing ever so cooler as he neared the ice and hovered one foot above it, both hands gripping at the waist-high barrier that circled the ice. His stare was intense as he did nothing more but contemplate, weighing his options. He could still back out, but, 

 

**_"You don't have to say anything, just stand by me!"_ **

 

          Those words ' _he_ ' said in his dreams shot back at him, words that pleaded for only a small faith in ' _him_ ', and Yuuri could clearly hear the choked sobs in ' _his_ ' voice albeit only in his head. He let out a breath, a small, faint gust of air appearing before him. 

 

**_"..r, I did great, right?"_ **

 

          ' _He_ ' sounded overjoyed as ' _he_ ' said that. 

 

 

 ** _"That was the only thing I could think of to surprise you more than you've surprised me."_**         

 

 

        And all at once, all the feelings he'd kept repressed within himself, all the built-up sadness and apathy, and all the things in the world seemed to disappear as Yuuri felt the cold embracing him, and the sound of his skates sliding across the ice echoed throughout the empty ice skating rink-- empty, but with the exception of him and his happiness. 


	3. You Can Love Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, Yuuri is trying hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi yes hello I'm not dead I swear 
> 
> Sorry, been in and out of some stuff lately, so I haven't really had the time to write or reply to a n y t h i n g at all   
> (psst I'm sorry kit kat) 
> 
> But I hope you enjoy this thing and I'm thanking past me for bulletting through her plans bc I had n o idea how to write this chapter before I came across that bullet list

        Yuuri would be lying had he told anyone he didn't enjoy that day, when he was, in quite a literal sense, forcibly dragged to Ice Castle Hasetsu, had his old skates chucked into his hands and was then left alone for the remainder of the afternoon to skate and enjoy the feeling of ice beneath his blades.

  He could still very clearly remember the cold whipping at his cheeks, the breeze he created making his hair go flying back, the imaginary music that he heard echo within his mind guiding his body through the motions of a makeshift dance.         

        Yuuri kept that way for a while, gliding and dancing and skating, lost in the blankness of his thoughts and the movements he performed until the later hours of the night, and he'd caught Yuuko standing by the doorway with a smile raised on her cheeks, much like how his were.

It was a knowing and joyful smile; something that, though unspoken, told them that this wouldn't be the last time he stepped foot onto the ice-- that this man, who claimed to only be a _dime-a-dozen skater_ , would always come back to his calling that was his life. Yuuri would be too stubborn and/or embarrassed to admit that, though, probably. It was in the way they grew together that she thought she could pinpoint certain reactions and predict certain moves from him.

          But she found that maybe she didn't know him quite as well as she thought when Yuuri opened his mouth to speak. 

"I missed this.," he said finally, tone sincere, after a bit more of silence save for the scratching of blades across the ice.

          He'd stroked to the barrier slowly to retrieve his glasses. Yuuko could only nod in reply once his vision cleared and her smile flashed brighter than before. She was proud of her family for being able to drag Yuuri back, to make him realise that he was always only lying to himself when he'd told them, " _I'm going to stop skating._ " right as he got back home to Ice Castle, to _Hasetsu_.

A year of lying to yourself, though.. She could only _imagine_.

  "So does this mean you're tired of being depressed yet? We've waited for you for a year!"

          Normally, Yuuri would feel the blood rising to his cheeks, feel the heat tint his face in a bright red or either he'd shrink off to the side in deep regret-- but instead, he let himself laugh. He let the bubbles of laughter rise from his throat and resound throughout the air. Yuuko's expression suggested that she was surprised, but it was a pleasant kind of surprise-- one that would've quickly turned a whole 180 degrees to concern should her friend not have said anything.

  As Yuuri laughed, tears began slipping through those thick lashes of his, and they didn't stop, even after his voice died down. In the end, the palm of his hand had taken to wiping tears off one eye the best he could.

          And yet his smile remained.

  "I am. Thank you, Yuuko. All of you."

 

* * *

 

 

         It was honestly embarrassing that he'd cried in front of Yuuko again for the first time in years, yet Yuuri really couldn't bring himself to care.

On his way home, after thanking the whole family properly with only multiple encouragements from Axel, Lutz and Loop and a thumbs-up from Takeshi in reply, he'd rode through the high of Dopamine his brain mass-produced from the experience of skating again. He was happy, absolutely elated, more _positive_ than he's ever been since the past months of feeling sorry for himself and trying to live a life without the ice. 

        Realisation was a powerful thing.

        For now, gone were the thoughts that anything and everything in his life could go wrong, and he relished the breath of fresh air around him, feeling as free as the gulls flying over the deep, blue sea.

          When he'd arrived home, he fixed himself a quick dinner - _not wanting to interrupt his mother who was most likely asleep_ -, bathed then soaked in the hot springs to chase away the possibility of sore muscles, before criss-crossing the halls to his room, quiet as he could, given the hour. He set his backpack down onto his desk chair -minding to be careful this time- and climbed into bed, and it didn't take too long before every factor of his tiredness leading up to that point took him into a head-first dive into slumber.

  - 

_December 30, 2016 - 07:24_

_I can practically feel the nosebleed._

_Okay, so what happened, exactly?_

_Nothing to worry about, I didn't fall off the bed again._

_Among all the recurring dreams (besides the ones that feature Viktor Nikiforov exclusively, thank you subconscious), I dreamt the program one again.  _

_You remember, right? The pseudo-Grand Prix Final one, the_

      Yuuri pursed his lips, squinted despite the glasses perched on his nose and gripped the pen tighter, before a sigh left him momentarily after and he continued writing, 

_.. the 'Viktor, I did great, right?' one, and now, we have, yet again, the infamous 'smashing face-first into the barrier after trying a jump' one.  Like I said, I can practically feel the nosebleed._

          And Yuuri _could_ , and it felt _weird_ , and he only waited any second now for the blood to start trickling out one nostril, maybe _both_ by how hard the impact ' _he_ ' felt was, despite it all being another dream. Why did his dreams either have to be embarrassing, painful, or a mixture of both? 

_I can actually remember up to half of what the song 'I' skated to was this time, though, but it doesn't strike me as anything too familiar, or something I've really heard recently, and I'm a pianist!_

_The song was pretty good, so maybe I'll look for it, I don't know._

_Except, how do you even begin to look for a song without any lyrics?_

          Yuuri made his emphasis clear by encircling the question. 

_The song couldn't be classical, no way, so we can cross out Beethoven and Mozart and whoever else._

_Maybe someone skated to it during my last season, or this season, and I subconsciously overheard. It could be anything, really._

_I only want to find its name._

- 

          Yuuri flipped through his journal. It might've been way too early for everyone else to drowsily attempt to recall the images and voices and sounds you'd encounter in a dream whilst only half-awake and to jot it all down, too, but this was important.

          Or at least, it _felt_ important.

          Repeating dreams were hard to ignore, especially if those dreams showcased a life being vicariously showered with affection by the great living legend of skating himself. There was also the fact that the situations seemed too realistic, unlike most dreams, as if they were things that could happen any day now, or already have-- like memories. Fragments upon fragments of maybe-memories being fed into his brain.

They gave Yuuri a sense of déjà vu, and he intended to piece together the full story if he could, if he wanted to give himself some peace of mind from those damned bright cobalts that were the most beautiful pair of eyes anyone could ever have the honour of seeing, yet always seemed to focus solely on the person Yuuri was seeing these dreams as.

          He shuddered at the memory of those eyes trained on ' _him_ ', and closed his journal. Swinging his legs from the bed, he stood and held both arms up above his head, fingers interlocked. 

 _Another day_ , Yuuri thought as he stretched upwards, hearing his joints pop at the released tension, as well as feeling his muscles gradually awaken as he did.

          Yuuri only remembered it as being like every day of his life since officially retiring, until he glanced at his backpack still sitting on the desk chair.  The man felt compelled to approach it, to reveal whatever he'd left inside the bag though it's always been sitting there, mostly untouched unless he needed to sit down at his desk - _which was just occasionally_ -, until when Takeshi charged into his room and slung it onto his shoulder last night, then they went to Ice Castle, and watched the GPF.

_Wait, no, we didn't watch the GPF. I actually.._

          No coffee or tea could jumpstart Yuuri like the sudden realisation did as he jumped on the spot and scrambled to slide the zipper of his backpack open, heart racing and eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights because there was no way in Hell-

  _My skates.._

          And lo and behold, there they were, the leather polished, skate guards clipped onto the blades that Yuuri could still feel underneath his boots as he traced random half-circles onto the ice. His skates sat snugly in the space of Yuuri's bag and the man was going to do a double-take just looking at them because last night was absolutely _real_ , and he did indeed skate by himself in Ice Castle again, and he wanted to do it again-- so many more times until he physically couldn't anymore.

  He had to calm his heart.

          Yuuri inhaled deeply, eyes clenching shut. 

 _Breathe in, out, in out_ , he'd chant within his head.

          But he finally admitted it to himself, at least. He finally did the impossible after so long, told himself that he wanted to be back on the ice.

          After how many months of withdrawal, of denial and pushing it all to the back of his mind, Yuuri finally let himself go and did what he wanted. Fear didn't stop him this time.

          He felt as if he should feel overwhelmed by this, and he did, but it wasn't really the bad type of overwhelmed that rendered him vulnerable and weak-- It was the kind of overwhelming feeling that told him that he pushed himself with the help of his friends, that even though they told him that he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to, Yuuri himself took the decision that would ultimately lead to his.. his **_revival_** , instead of letting himself slowly rot away all alone and in all his misery, as that evil voice in his head kept telling him.

          Yuuri Katsuki felt overwhelmed, and it wasn't because he was going to have another panic attack - _another one he'd feared would take days to recuperate from_ \- but because of the love he'd had for skating that still burned through a year of being ignored. It was because of that, too, that he gained hope. 

Hope that maybe even he could be fixed. 

He couldn't believe it. 

 

* * *

 

 

          The days went by quicker than usual, the New Year spent with his family and friends and fireworks and sparklers on the beach and Yuuri found himself smiling through them, though small as they were on some times. 

What once was a bland, everyday routine of wake up, help, sleep, rinse and repeat became tinged with a colour Yuuri couldn't quite name as happiness, but rather, simple contentedness.

          He built back some of his confidence to start skating again (though competitions were out of the question), he got to catch up with the people he hadn't seen in years - _namely, the Nishigori family and Minako_ -, plus he was at home with his family and mom's amazing Katsudon and their heavenly hot springs! His quiet life in the quiet seaside town of Hasetsu, Kyushu seemed not perfect, but near-perfect nonetheless.

          Mari and her parents would always see their little man beaming like he used to, before all the events happened, before the competitions, before the downward spiral into complete Hell accompanied by months upon months of stress coming from all sorts of different angles. They were starting to think that Yuuri staying in his hometown might not have been such a bad idea after all. He looked happier than when he first came back home, at least. That was good, right?

But then again, they would also see the faraway look in his eyes, sometimes, even after he'd get home from the rink as per the added activity in his day-to-day life.

          Skating brought the colour back to his cheeks (both literally and figuratively), seemed to be that one giant missing piece in the puzzle that completed Yuuri, but..

Mari would still ask him - _just to reassure both of them **and** their parents_ \- if he were truly alright; if he was _actually_ happy being here, back in their quiet, little hometown where nothing really happened and not back in the exciting outside world that patiently waited for him-- _if it was even really expecting him to come back at all_ , a sharp little thought in the back of Yuuri's brain would remind him.

Still, though, he'd smile, nod, and say, "I don't care about trying to catch up to Viktor anymore. I got to skate against him, on the same ice as him even if it was only just once, and I'm satisfied with that even if I didn't get to stand next to him on that podium."

          And every time, Mari would wonder if that was only a bigger lie than when he announced he'd stop skating.

          Yuuri knew it was a bigger lie than that, possibly the biggest lie he's told.

          Viktor Nikiforov had come into his life like a giant wave straight from the ocean-- a beautiful, amazing giant wave that you can't help but admire from afar. He'd unknowingly embedded himself too deep into Yuuri's roots for Yuuri to ever really stop caring about him completely, considering he'd followed in the man's footsteps for more than a _decade_ , his career even coming to be because of him once appearing in the tiny tube television in Ice Castle's lobby, when he'd had long, flowing hair that shone like the stars coupled with eternally-entrancing eyes, bluer than anything Yuuri had ever seen-- Bluer than sapphires or lapis lazulis, or maybe even the ocean itself. Hell, even his damned dog was because of Viktor.

Viktor Nikiforov was his idol, practically his _God_ whom he worshipped. Yuuri had known of and followed his existence for definitely more than half of his life now, collected photos and various other memorabilia that he kept within his room and now it came to the point of seeing the skater in his dreams.

           Maybe those dreams were his subconscious's way of telling him that this was what he wanted from Viktor - _that being a life with him, a life spent loving him in a different way than he's ever had, and being loved right back_ \- but let's be realistic, when, outside of books and movies, did that ever happen? _Exactly_. At least Yuuri could confirm he was still logical. 

Knowing all of this, though, made it a big, fat lie that he didn't care about Viktor anymore because Viktor had inspired and surprised Yuuri over and over for too long.

          Yuuri couldn't help but slump against the barrier of the rink, head tilting up towards the ceiling, eyes far gone. Thinking all that.. it was hard to accept it all as the truth. 

"I'm obsessed with him, aren't I? I'm obsessed with him and now he's haunting me in my dreams. Viktor Nikiforov, why do you have to be such a perfect human being? Why did you have to be on T.V. right when I was putting my skates on? Why do you have to be so damn beautiful and inspiring? **_Why?_** ," he'd mutter, his tone of voice doing more than just hinting at his frustration.

        He's all alone in the rink again, with no sign of Takeshi or the triplets, and as far as Yuuri knew, Yuuko sat just behind the front desk beyond the double doors leading to and from the rink. So that meant he was talking to himself.. _God_ , no, maybe he was talking to the ice. Maybe the ice had magical powers that transported words and wishes all across the globe to skaters everywhere. Yuuri hoped it was both true and false.

          He shook his head, both hands suddenly colliding onto his cheeks as the light slapping noise echoed throughout the high ceilings and the ice. He had to stop thinking about those things or he could safely conclude Viktor Nikiforov - _now forever known to Yuuri as **He-Who-Shall-Never-Be-Mentioned**_ \- would be the death of him. 

He skated back to the centre of the ice, taking the time to level his breathing and think straight again as he took up his starting position.

          The Program Dream replayed in his head one too many times the past year for him to learn what to do, because he'd only had to close his eyes and trust his body to move as ' _he_ ' did. Strangely enough, as he inhabited someone else's body, even if only in a dream, he felt comfortable in the vessel lent to him for the night though he himself couldn't control it and was only forced to watch through ' _his_ ' eyes. 

But he could feel every muscle contract, every move he made, every breath taken in, and so only had to incorporate the program into the real world, where he was in control and he skated to that song he'd by now memorised within his mind.         

Skating to it felt natural, somehow. He must've felt a connection to both the program and the piece.

          Yuuri began trying to play the song on his old keyboard about two days after deciding to look for it through the Internet - _which garnered no luck_ \- or through asking Phichit who then asked Ketty, a conservatory student Yuuri once asked to compose something for him. Both had replied with never hearing anything like he described, even as he played the first eight measures to Phichit through Skype. It was safe to say that trying to arrange a piece unknown to man without finding sheet music for it anywhere was an utter pain the in the behind, but Yuuri wanted to play the whole damn song and _nothing_ was going to stop him.

          With a sigh, Yuuri cleared his mind. He'd think of that later, because now the music had started in his head, quick sixteenth notes one after the other though his movements couldn't have been slower, more graceful. In a way, the contrast between the program he skated and the mostly-quick pace of the song complimented each other, and he decided to keep note of that as he began gaining speed.

          The first jump neared him, and Yuuri could only hope he'd be able to land it. If there was one thing he noticed, though, was that the dread of failing wasn't there.

          He bent his knee, arms out and up and his toepick ready to bury itself into the ice just as the high note rang through the air. The takeoff and the rotations were good on his Quad-turned-triple Toe and he'd managed to land though stumbling and still going through with the Double Toe afterwards which he'd at least landed cleanly. The most fascinating thing was that he didn't feel the need to just all but continue, to stop and never return again once for all.

          For once, he wasn't disappointed in a mistake he made because he could hear _that_ voice again, talking to ' _him_ ' in comforting whispers and giving the occasional teasing advice as well. 

 _ **"You tend to flub your jumps when something's on your mind.,"**_ he'd say.

          It was true, but even so.. 

Maybe he should consider re-building his muscles. 


End file.
